The same basic car as seen on the previous incarnations of Volga saloons and wagons still continued to soldier on as the 20th century approached its end. Even if the car was extensively re-engineered, it seemed as if the middle section of a GAZ-24 from the late 1960s was still doing business, and in a way it was true: the doors, the pillars and the platform remained.

Somehow, the 3110 looks good to my eyes. It’s definitely less incongruous than the Moskvitch saloons of the same time frame, which by then looked like caricatures. I would love to see a Volvo 240 receive the exact same treatment as the Volga here: retain everything that’s crucial to consider it effectively the same car, but update and rounden the bucks just to make it appear gently modernized.

“It’s like a depressing version of your Polo”, said the esteemed writer B Z. R, as I showed him these photos of this green mid-1980s Skoda 120 GLS that’s currently for sale in my town. And he’s right, in a way, even if the rear-engined Skodas pre-date the Volkswagen years by a large margin. The 54-horsepower cars were sold on the same market, to roughly the same customers, but in 1985 Finland you could have gotten the Skoda for roughly 31 000 Finnish marks, while the VW cost twenty thousand more – in today’s dollars, 11,500 and 18,800.

The Skoda wasn’t completely bare-bones, though. With the GLS trim you got a tachometer and five speeds, and you could never get the Polo with four doors, which is kind of strange to me, as even the Opel Corsa was offered with a full set of doors.

As a bonus of sorts, I’ve added some new car prices from a Finnish magazine from 1985 and converted them to today’s money. That should show you what the average Finn got for his money.

Let me just stop for a while and say how much I enjoy this image of the GAZ-3102. It shows exactly how the Soviet carmaker and the country around it had entered the 1980s, and the feel of the shot is straight out of an imaginary Russian remake of The Equalizer.

While the GAZ-24 soldiered on, the 3102 was developed as both its successor and a higher-up of sorts. You can see the lineage in the basic structure, but both technically and appearance-wise, the 3102 is a step up.

This weekend marks the beginning of my fifth year here at Hooniverse. It’s been a wild, productive ride from the early years to the latest days: down on the street sightings, road trips, ancient cars and the occasional new one, along with a bunch of Beaterland daily drivers I’ve bought and kept on the road.

A little while ago I dedicated a weekend to the glory days of the Soviet carmaker AZLK that produced Moskvitches, and this weekend it’s GAZ’s turn, with numerous Volgas churned out during the latter half of the 20th century. Volgas were always sort of official cars, so you could call them the LTD Crown Victorias of Soviet Russia. And like the Panther platform, they were built for absolutely forever.

Have you encountered really, really Hooniworthy lyrics in your favorite music? I am quite sure, that these pages hold together a few fans of progressive rock, and King Crimson to be precise. The song “Dig Me” from 1984’s Three of a Perfect Pair is pretty close to a familiar mindset of mechanical sympathy.

Among some of the more easy listening pieces on that album, Dig Me is quite abrasive, but the lyrics are close to home.

Would you believe if I told you the sleek, light-looking car above was a concept from two years ago? Five? Perhaps with LED headlights and different door glass instead of the SVX-y elements, it would be easily believed.

But no, the Ethos 2 was actually presented at the Turin Motor Show in 1993 – an astonishing 22 years ago. Maybe it’s the shade of blue that still works in 2015, maybe it’s the well-proportioned body, maybe it’s the minimalistic approach, but there’s nothing on the car that would severely date it back two decades.

From 1947 to 1954, the Moskvitches produced by Moscovskiy Zavod Malolitrazhnyh Avtomobiley were often of the 400-420 saloon type, as seen above. The car was based on the 1938 Opel Kadett, and the 1.1-litre engine produced 23 horsepower. Wikipedia mentions the 0-50 mph sprint as having taken 55 seconds, and the car achieving 31 mpg, which is hardly bad for those times.

In the Moskvitch portfolio, there are numerous models that deserve to be seen. Take a peek.

With time, the 408/412 series were replaced by the modernized 2140 series, which relied on the same basic structure. As with the previous post, there is a great deal of Finnish promotional shots courtesy of the importer.

The sole engine here was the 1500cc engine from the 412, meaning the export versions remained to be called the Moskvitch 1500/1500S and the later 1500SL.

Above the Moskvitch 408 line, there was the 412, to which I referred in earlier posts. It was positioned as a more premium choice on the repertoire, as it was plusher and featured a larger engine.

It’s also worth mentioning that the bulk of the photographs on this piece have been taken by the Finnish importer, Konela Auto. Those black plates really shine on the brand-new Elites, as the 412 was called on the export market.

With yesterday’s posts, we focused on the 1970s prototypes that centred on replacing the 408 and 412 series cars of the 1960s and 1970s. It makes sense to give some space to the earlier cars, as they are really rather beautiful in a narrow, upright sense. The promotional images dedicated to them are also worth taking a look at, as the colours are bright and everything is tip-top.

The first car, the black one is actually a pre-production example from 1961. Keeping in mind it took until mid-1980s for the lineage to be replaced, the base car that started its life as the 408, survived a handsome quarter of a decade – to some turbulent times.